Worry
by AccountClosedDueToHealth
Summary: Nathan rubs his lower lip and realizes that old habits die hard. One-shot


**Title: Worry**

**Summary: Nathan rubs his lower lip and realizes that old habits die hard.**

**Disclaimer: No real spoilers for any part of the series. This is before Nathan realized that he can feel Audrey. I kept seeing Nathan rubbing his lip in various episodes and it made me wonder why he did it, considering that he can't feel it. So I wrote up my own little explanation here.**

**I'm not entirely sure when Nathan's Trouble started up again (or when it went away the first time). The timeline on the show is a bit difficult to follow sometimes. Basically I assume it went away sometime around Junior high and for my purposes it came back his junior year of high school.**

**Any errors are mine, please enjoy.**

…

"You're worried." It was a statement, not a question, and Nathan stared at his partner.

"What?" He asked.

Audrey looked at him. "You're rubbing your lip; you only do that when you're worried. So, what's up?"

Nathan blinked down at his hand and shook his head. "Nothing, I just have a lot on my mind right now."

"Right." The blonde looked skeptical. "Did you know that you talk more when you're worried? Usually everything's monosyllabic, but when something's bothering you, it's like you have verbal diarrhea, trying to cover up what ever it is that's wrong."

"I'm fine," He said the words slowly, emphasizing the brief nature of his response.

"Uh huh." Audrey didn't look convinced, but she went back to her paperwork.

They were between troubled cases at the moment and the former FBI agent was bored. Nathan understood how she felt, it was exciting to work on the weird cases and he imagined that her workload as a Fed had been similarly stimulating, but personally he liked these quiet weeks in between freak shows.

Leaning back in his chair, Nathan felt his arm automatically rise and gripped the armrest as a diversion. He sat like that for a moment before heaving a sigh and excusing himself. As he left the room he forced himself to ignore the fact that Audrey was staring at him with concern written all over her face. He couldn't tell her what was bothering him. Nathan couldn't explain to the blonde how much he worried about her. Partly because he was embarrassed to and party because he didn't think he could explain it. He liked her and he didn't want her to get hurt. If she stayed here, and god, did he want her to stay, she would only get hurt. But he couldn't bring himself to tell her to leave.

Locked in the solitary room that served as the restroom for the whole station, Nathan stared at his reflection in the mirror. Frowning, he took his lower lip between two fingers and turned it out so that he could see the skin inside. Nothing appeared to be bleeding. He opened his mouth and inspected his tongue and the inside of his cheeks. No open sores or bite marks. The brunette wasn't really surprised by the discovery, or lack thereof, even though he couldn't feel it when he chewed on himself, he could usually taste the blood.

During his junior year of high school things had really begun to pile up. School, the troubles, his fights with his dad, the general feeling of being alone….He hadn't had much of an outlet for stress back then and without realizing it he had begun to chew on his lower lip whenever he felt anxiety. Lily Atherton sat across from him in study hall. She had screamed when she looked up from reading Hamlet and seen blood dripping off his chin. The doctor in Derry said that if Lily hadn't noticed when she did, Nathan might have bitten his lip clean off. He had been so consumed he hadn't even noticed the flavor. After stitching him back together the doctor had recommended that he wear a mouth guard for a while.

And Nathan had. He had already been a bit of an outcast, but now that he was the freak who had to be protected against eating his own face, the isolation was even more acute. He had stopped studying at school so that he wouldn't have to wear the mouth guard in public. His grades had suffered a little at first, but he got used to staying up late studying and managed to keep a decent average. He slept through study hall and the teachers let him. Nobody really wanted anything to do with the freaks.

His condition made him indestructible and fragile as glass.

When he went to college Nathan had left the mouth guard at home. After wearing it for almost two years he had broken the habit of chewing on his lip, but he lived in fear of its return. He had been a freak in high school; he didn't want to be a freak here. There wasn't much he could do to prevent it; he couldn't feel it when he bit himself. The first semester he ran himself into exhaustion every day, trying to keep the stress at bay. But he couldn't sustain that pace and eventually he had to find something else to help him deal. The only thing he could really do was to check to make sure that he hadn't started biting himself again. When he studied at the library, or a coffee shop, Nathan constantly touched his lower lip and chin to ensure that he wasn't bleeding.

He could still sense the feeling of relief that coursed through him every time he pulled his hand away and didn't find blood. He never did start chewing on his lip again, but the habit of checking had stayed with him.

Looking in the mirror Nathan was reminded of how much time he had spent in front of another mirror, learn how to eat again. He still didn't like to eat in public; the chances of him biting off his tongue were almost too embarrassing to think about. His physical therapist had described it to his mother as trying to eat after your face had been numbed by Novocain. He vaguely remembered visiting the dentist before his condition had presented and wondered how accurate that description really was. Reflexively, he rubbed his lip.

There was a banging on the door, "Nathan, you in there? C'mon, we've got a new case."

"Coming," He took one last look at his reflection and went to meet up with his partner. Call him Captain Numb, but somebody had to protect Audrey and it might as well be him.


End file.
